Dr. Elena King
Dr. Elena King is a professor of English and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and Associate Director of the M.A. TESOL Program at Greensboro College. She received both her MAT in TESOL and Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction in Urban Education, TESOL from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Throughout her 15 years in the TESOL field, she has worked as a university supervisor for TESOL candidates, an ESL instructor in an intensive English language program, an adjunct faculty member in the College of Education at UNC Charlotte, a community college ESL instructor and an ESL teacher in middle and secondary public schools.
Dr. King began her career at Greensboro College as an adjunct instructor in 2014 and was named to the full-time faculty in 2016. Since joining the faculty at Greensboro College, Dr. King has worked to create a licensure-plus MAT TESOL program which she also coordinates. In addition, she has designed new courses such as the Online Pedagogy and Course Development. She serves as the university supervisor for students pursuing English Language Arts or TESOL licensure. Her work has taken her to Germany to teach at Ludwigsburg University of Education and “virtually” to Colombia to support the Be Immersed language program. She serves on the Teacher Education Committee (TEC) and is on both the Literacy and Digital Advisory Task Forces as subsets of the TEC, and is the chair of the college’s Human Subjects Research Committee.
Her research interests include teacher perceptions of success among immigrant student populations, teacher identity reflection, and explorations of the intersections of culture and literacy. She has presented her research at such venues as International TESOL, Georgia TESOL, Carolina TESOL, AERA, and has conducted teacher workshops for local education agencies.
She has published research driven articles in journals such as: Action in Teacher Education, High School Journal, Issues in Teacher Education, and Multicultural Perspectives. Dr. King has also contributed chapters to such books as Content Area Reading: Literacy and Learning Across the Curriculum; Education in America: Perspectives, Challenges and Opportunities; Meta-ethnography and Theory: Identity and Difference in Youth Syntheses; and Lessons from the Field: Culturally Affirming Literacy Practices for Urban Elementary Students